As he starts the UK leg of touring b'lieve i'm goin down…, the Philadelphian singer-songwriter goes from live free jazz to dry-humoured piano sketches in picking 13 albums that steered the sound of his sixth album

Randy Newman - 12 SongsThe first song on it ['Have You Seen My Baby?'], I don't love, but it was just another one... I just picked that one because I think, on Trouble In Paradise and Little Criminals and Born Again, there's probably songs on there, if you go song-by-song, that I like better, that are more produced. But I think starting maybe with track two or so, I burned that one from vinyl - it has that same effect, that sprawling effect, because it's more primitive, before it got too produced. It's just got that bluesy piano thing, it's well recorded and I don't know, I think at the end of the day, if you listen to an album as one piece - sure, maybe start it at the second track - but it just travels in this sort of good, honky tonk bluesy way. I'd say my record came off more like something like that than 'Baltimore' from Little Criminals. I love that song, but it's very produced, very polished and 12 Songs is more just naturally... it's got it's warts, but they're all pretty beautiful.

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